


Things The Wizard Is No Longer Allowed To Do

by AndyAO3



Category: Diablo (Video Game), Diablo III
Genre: M/M, Plot Spoilers, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, and that the wizard is also a little shit, but violence I guess, did we mention that lyndon is a little shit, no real smut here folks, off-color humor, possibly, really they're both just assholes, the wizard being cheeky, the wizard getting into trouble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-18
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-16 04:47:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1332457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndyAO3/pseuds/AndyAO3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Wizard gets into trouble. Other people end up having to drag him out of it. And sometimes he drags them into it with him.</p><p>Spoilers ahoy! Read at your own risk if you don't want that sort of thing. Chapter 4 has pre-slash, sorta.</p><p>NOTE: Now completed WITH COVER ART!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The "Arcane Orbit and Glomp" Strategy

**Author's Note:**

> 'Sup folks, I'm Andy and I'm crazy. Good way to introduce myself, gets everything out of the way nice and quick.
> 
> Decided that since I've been writing fic for ages now, I might as well make an account to share it with people outside of my tiny friend-circle. Long-time forum and WoW and messenger RPer, but this'll be the first time I've posted anything publically since I was, oh, sixteen. (Seriously, Illidan was current raid content when I posted fic last. It's been a while. No, I'm not telling you where it is, it's godawful emo Tsubasa Chronicle KuroFai full of purple prose and you don't want that.)
> 
> The Diablo III tag was woefully barren, so I felt I should give it a go. Fair warning, most of what I write in these will run pretty close to the game's own story (and therefore, will likely have spoilers), but usually with my own 'what if's of weird situations, fun hypotheticals and plain ol' outtakes thrown in. Some of it isn't possible ingame, but it's what should have totally happened based on what *is* possible and what kind of ridiculous almost-demigods the player characters are. 
> 
> NOW WITH COVER ART.
> 
> (Also, there's these two *really good* fics by the same author - "Rest Stop" and "The Hunter and the Thief" by Zooheaded - that you should all go read right now if you haven't already. The characterization is awesome.)

__

(cover image by me)

 

_"Do you ever doubt your decisions?"_

_"Often, but I make them anyway."_

 

 

It was a nice night out in the Dalghur Oasis. Well, nice if you didn't mind nights being soggy, buggy and infested with fallen, but Li could live with the first two if he got to have a good helping of the other bit.

Unlike his demon hunting companion, Li did not have any particular grudge against demons. Demons would be demons, just like rats would be rats or mosquitoes would be mosquitoes. All one had to do was kill them and move on, in most cases. Fallen, especially, were probably best defined as vermin. People got killed by them about as often as they did by disease-carrying mosquitoes or rats, they tended to infest an area quickly once they got a foothold, and they could be stubbornly persistant even when you had killed a very great majority of their population. As such, they made excellent target practice.

For what Li loved doing, and what his companions tended to regard with wariness or outright dread, was experimenting with new spells and combinations thereof.

The spell cocktail that night? Highly reactive Arcane Orbs in a shielding formation, spinning around him, and a simple Teleport. In theory, he would be able to charge through enemy lines and have the orbs tear through them, so that all there would be left to do afterward was running back and looting everything at his leisure.

Lyndon, having some experience with Li's experiments, declined the opportunity to come along and went out a-hunting with, well, the hunter. Sure, the two of them didn't always work well together, but as far as the rogue was concerned, anywhere was better than with Li at that point. Kormac was indisposed, also, caught between the vast Caldeum library (something Li could not blame him for in the least) and the texts of his own order. So, that left Eirena as the only one available to come along.

\---

"Do all men dress like that where you come from?" So full of questions. Every time he thought he had a moment, she had something else to say, whether it be a bit of input he didn't actually need, or a comment about the weather or their surroundings or anything at all. She even offered to conjure him some water once. Which he could do himself.

Still, she did know a lot about magic. So he sighed quietly and forced a thin smile, humoring her. "Well, I might be a bit _bolder_ than most. Why?"

"Oh, no reason." _Really_? All right, then. Shaking his head, he found himself questioning whether her knowledge of magic was worth some of the niggling little annoyances that came along with her presence. The Dalghur Oasis wasn't something to be traversed by himself, however, even skilled as he was in self-defense. The snake-demon servants of Belial would be more than eager to attempt an ambush if they knew he was on his own.

Well, best get to work before she starts talking again, he thought to himself. Li cast the 'arcane orbit' spell, as he called it, and grinned smugly as the summoned orbs whirled dangerously around him. Ahead of them, a group of fallen were waving their sticks menacingly as they danced around atop a rope bridge that spanned a gorge. It was perfect that they were clumped together like that - the area of effect from his spell should be just enough to blow the group apart into scattered, terrified, squealing demonic ragdolls.

The wizard took a breath, let it out slowly, and in a rush of arcane energy, he teleported forward and smack onto the middle of the bridge, and the group of fallen. He guffawed as one of the first orbs barreled into them and sent a handful flying with incoherent yells of fear and impotent rage.

"Didn't see that coming, did y--" He was cut off mid-taunt when one of his orbs hit part of the bridge, making it pitch sideways when the ropes there snapped. With a startled squawk, he lost his footing, flailing his arms to grab onto anything that would keep him from falling into the gorge below. He managed to grasp a bit of splintered planking and scrambled to try and get a better grip.

That was about when the other two orbs swung 'round and smacked into what was left of the bridge, and gravity sent him careening toward the hard cliff face that was one side of the gorge. He smacked into it with far more force than he would have liked and in that moment where he was winded by the impact, he lost his grip again.

A moment later and he probably would have been a mess of broken bones and pain at the bottom, but he only felt himself falling for an instant, before a small, surprisingly strong hand caught his with such speed that it strained his elbow and shoulder.

"I've got you!" he heard Eirena call out to him. Looking up, he could see that she had her other hand and both feet caught in the remains of the bridge. She had to have teleported to be able to cross the distance that had been between them when he fell... even with that in mind, her reflexes had to be impossibly good.

He never questioned why he kept her along again.


	2. The Arcane Death Blossom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lyndon is the worst enabler of Li's more cocky tendencies. This is why you two can't have nice things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter, just so y'all have access to what I've got so far. Two more after this, but I'm still in the process of writing them.
> 
> ONWARDS TO THE FIC!

_"Do you write your own spells?"_

_"Of course! Don't you?"_

_"How else do you think I got this good?"_

 

 

The demon hunter and Lyndon had been less than successful as a pair. Li supposed that he should have expected something along those lines, but he hadn't expected Lyndon to be so upset about the affair. Kormac had taken one look at how Ander had come out of the whole thing and told the scoundrel under no uncertain terms that he wasn't allowed to be the demon hunter's sole escort any longer; and that was even _with_ him completely failing to notice the holes and burns in Lyndon's jacket and clothes from things he'd failed to dodge.

"You can't help it that you're not a healer," Li had said gently to the rogue when he caught him moping. But Lyndon was not to be soothed so easily, so Li decided the best thing for it would be to take him out treasure-hunting. Besides, Adria wasn't letting them go off to kill Belial without having gotten this Zoltun Kulle fellow's dismembered bits together and reviving him, anyway - something about a black soulstone and trapping Belial's soul, which neither Li nor the demon hunter thought was particularly necessary - and treasure-hunting was the best way to go about putting that quest off for as long as possible while still looking productive and working off steam that built up while Caldeum kept rotting from the inside.

The suggestion cheered Lyndon up considerably. It probably helped that Li failed to mention wanting to practice a new spell or two while he was out.

Leaving Zoltun Kulle's talkative disembodied head to Ander for what they called 'safe keeping', which translated to 'we don't want him snarking at us while we go poke nests of angry lacuni in the desert', the two of them came out of the waypoint into what appeared to be a completely barren wasteland, with nothing but skeletons of long-dead giant unidentified monsters, sand, cracked earth and weather-worn rocks as far as the eye could see.

It was the perfect place to hide treasure and lootable corpses if you didn't want anyone going after them, and the perfect place for two especially brave, skilled treasure-hunters to go looking for such things. You would have to be completely mad, or absolutely confident in your abilities - and supply of extra water - to try. Good thing, then, that Li could conjure water and had enough confidence for the both of them.

Harsh winds whipped across the vast dry plain and took the breath out of them, but they'd worked together enough that they knew each others' patterns and didn't have to call out cues to one another; blind, then freeze, then a multi-shot, then blizzard, and if it isn't dead, pinning shots followed by Archon. Frozen orb, blizzard and a frost nova were what Lyndon was used to avoiding. It was all second nature to them. Li should have known better than to switch anything about it, especially after what happened with his arcane orbit spell, but he wasn't really _thinking_.

For sure, it didn't help that Lyndon seemed to approve of the first change to the 'rotation', which was a test of using mirror images instead of his archon form. As they ducked behind a rock - just after he'd tried throwing it in for the first time in real combat - for a quick breather and some shelter against the wind, he caught the thief grinning at him.

"Keep that up and you'll almost be as good as me," Lyndon said, which was one of his ways of giving a compliment. "Although I _might_ have accidentally shot one of those other-you... _things_. While I was trying to pin down that spinning bastard."

"I wouldn't worry about it, they don't last long enough to be bothered and they can't feel it anyway," Li replied.

"Either way, I'll have to start paying attention." Lyndon smirked. A quiet moment passed as they surveyed the landscape and caught their breath, but it wasn't long. All it took was a look between them of raised brows and cocky grins before they were out and at it again, off to poke at the next hive of bugs, nest of lacuni or pile of suspicious bones that might yield something shiny or put up a good enough fight to be fun.

Two treasure chests, a bunch of angry skeletons and some sort of massive hulking monstrosity that was covered in sand and rock and plated bits with runes on them _later_ , the two of them found that they were running out of desert to explore that wasn't impossible to traverse on foot. Some of it still was, and the paths they could take were there, but they were getting to a point where, aside from the more productive quest assigned by Adria that they were still trying to avoid, the only things left to kill were bugs and the occasional lizard.

A short argument ensued, but the pair of them finally reluctantly agreed that they'd best go search that cave for the mad old mage's blood so they'd have something to show for when they got back to camp. Neither of them wanted to get chewed out by Adria, really.

It was a little bit of a walk from where they'd ended up to the cave's entrance, and when they got there, the both of them were slightly tired and a little cross -Lyndon moreso, because he was the one carrying most of their earlier loot - so they really just wanted to get it over with. So naturally, what they were faced with from the start was _hordes_ of ankle-biting smaller things - flying bugs, spiders, crawling bugs, burrowers, spiderlings - that were impossible to chew through with any sort of expediency.

Some combination of being utterly tired of and done with the damned things gave Li a terrible, terrible idea. True, it didn't seem terrible at the time, and he was desperate. But it was _terrible_ , as far as ideas go. Even as far as _his_ ideas would tend to go. He decided that he was going to combine mirror images with another spell he'd been toying with in his head for a while, a thing called the Death Blossom.

For those who don't know, the Death Blossom is what happens when the Arcane Torrent spell (carefully channeled but rapid-fire repeated bolts of arcane energy directed at a single targeted location) is let off its proverbial leash to go wreak havoc on everything. Far more powerful, but inefficient as all hell, and never inclined to go where one might want it to.

Li figured the solution to the problem of inaccuracy would be to have _four versions of him_ channeling it at the same time, thus turning it into magical carpet-bombing.

Having seen the mirror images before, Lyndon was not particularly concerned. He knew how to avoid hitting them, and avoid what they would be flinging about, and besides, he was much more worried about the spiderling that had climbed onto his head. So he didn't see what Li was doing until Li was already doing it, and _oh dear gods the roof was coming down._

Channeling the spell took concentration, but the wizard could tell from what peripheral awareness he still had that, hey, the bugs and things were at least dying. To him, that meant success. And he didn't quite understand it when he was suddenly yanked forward by a fistful of his robe, stumbling into what became a run. Or, he didn't understand it until he heard the crack and roar of the cave's ceiling collapsing behind him, and felt the shockwave at his back nearly knock him off his feet.

"You _daft bastard_ , now the whole bloody _entrance_ is gone!" Lyndon spat at him between fits of coughing in the settling dust. "Now we'll _have_ to clean out this blasted cave just to get to the bloody exit teleport!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The noodle incident that is Lyndon running with the demon hunter would be something I tried back before I learned how to properly use my vault skill. At the time, I ended up switching back to Kormac just because I couldn't think of another way to keep myself from getting turned to pudding by every AoE ever. I did eventually learn how to not stand in things, though, and came out of it being much more capable of staying alive just long enough to kill things before they killed me.


	3. Record-Breaking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Actions have consequences. The Wizard has yet to learn this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's been in my head for a while as a concept, and I'm happy with how it turned out. Mild spoilers, I suppose, but nothing really blatant. One more chapter to goooo~

_"If I die, you can have my rings. Both of them."_

_"But I gave you those."_

 

 

After days of defending the walls and getting the catapults set up, everyone was secretly a little glad to be defeating demons _inside_ the keep instead of outside. With the possible exception of their demon hunter, but no one could quite tell what his mood might be of late. The siege was quietly wearing on him, and people - with the exception of Kormac, who was protective of his friend as always - were giving the man a wide berth.

"Quite right to," Lyndon remarked offhand when the subject was brought up, examining a dented goblet he'd found. "I tapped him on the shoulder once to ask a question and nearly got _shot_. The man is a powder keg."

"You're supposed to be counting," Li admonished, turning to him long enough to give him a stern frown.

"Oh, right." The goblet was tossed aside and Lyndon's eyes scanned the musty room's splintered, broken and battered contents. "Fourteen."

The wizard pouted. " _Only_ fourteen? The lamp and vase on the desk should count!"

"No, we agreed, things that are _on_ desks and tables don't count, just the desk or table itself."

It was a game they'd played with one another since Caldeum, a way to stave off boredom. When all the demons were dead, the two of them took to breaking things. Sometimes they'd find stashed treasures or gold in the things they broke, but most of the time it was just because there were things in their immediate surroundings that weren't broken yet and that simply wouldn't do.

At first, they'd only broken things like the occasional vase or barrel, but soon they were merely breaking everything they came across that wasn't important to the building _not_ coming down on their heads. And Bastion's Keep had plenty of things that were just asking to be broken.

Li couldn't find a proper response to the rogue's honesty, so he just huffed and teleported to the next room. To his credit, Lyndon was so used to this that he just rolled his eyes and sighed.

"Someday, you're going to do that and end up halfway inside a wall!" he shouted.

"But then how would you manage to loot what was on the other half of my corpse?" came the reply, which the thief used to pinpoint where Li was so he could follow him on foot.

Lyndon saved his retort for when he was face-to-face with the man again. "I wouldn't be able to," he admitted, straightening his coat and looking dignified for someone who'd had to catch up to a teleport-happy mage on foot, "and the loss of those treasures is a thing I would mourn _deeply_."

That got the wizard to laugh. He then looked around the room he'd teleported into, doing an inventory, and sighed dejectedly. "This doesn't even look like enough to bother with."

"Nonsense, there's a stack of barrels in the corner. I should think those can be counted individually."

"And the desk?"

"Mmm, _well_..." Lyndon took his time in answering, which Li knew was for dramatic effect rather than because he was having trouble deciding. "There _is_ a wagon wheel leaned against it, and a bucket underneath it. I suppose those can count."

" _Excellent!_ " Not questioning the logic of who in the world might have a bucket under their desk and a wagon wheel leaned against it, the wizard instead got right to smashing things gleefully, attempting to break his five second record. Spectral blades, arcane orbs and a teleport with a wave of force tacked on the end were employed; he was taking no chances. Nothing would be intact.

When he finished, he stood amidst the results of his wanton destruction with a grin on his face, slightly out of breath with a faint layer of arcane residue coating half the room. His eyes were on Lyndon as he watched the rogue do his mental tallying.

"...Twenty-one!" came the final total, a look of slight surprise on the thief's face.

Li clapped his hands together with a triumphant laugh. " _Hah!_ A new record!"

"I should think so! What do you think, then, two dozen for the next one--" Lyndon was cut off mid-sentence by a throat-clearing sound from the vicinity of the door, and both of them turned to look. "...erm."

The demon hunter stood in the doorway, leaned against the splintered frame. He was giving the pair of them a very bland, unimpressed look. "So I take it that the two of you enjoy sleeping on bedrolls, then," he remarked.

Even though he was a good foot shorter than his fellow adventurer, Li was immediately on the defensive. "I don't see what that has to do with anything."

"You've been laying waste to every bit of furniture you come across like you've some sort of vendetta against those who like sitting and sleeping on things other than the cold, hard floor."

The pair of troublemakers looked at each other, then at the demon hunter, and they began to deflate a bit. Ander cracked a very faint smirk at that; the two of them looked like children that had been denied sweets. Neither of them had an answer for that, after all. Of course they wouldn't. That would require that they'd been _thinking_ about their actions.

They watched as he turned away from them, pulling his hood back up over his head. "You two go ahead and do as you please, there's a demon in the depths I have business with."

Both of them pouting a little, the two followed the demon hunter out of the room with the general demeanor of a couple of scolded puppies.


	4. Drinking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wizard drinks to forget, and ends up forgetting what boundaries are, too.
> 
> Spoilers and shippy bits!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Redid this chapter completely, and it ended up running long. I'm not sure just how long exactly, but definitely longish-looking when I got it all down in the wordpad file. Still, the pacing is fixed and the characters make infinitely more sense, and it even ties in with what I've written for the next fic. <3 Enjoy!

_"You look so grim. Isn't this your noble quest?"_

_"That doesn't mean I have to enjoy every second of it. Why do you ask?"_

_"Well, you... worry me, at times."_

 

 

Diablo was dead, the day was won. Evil hadn't been given the chance to triumph, et cetera. In the end, the ragtag band had made it through everything and come out on top. But it hadn't been done without a cost.

Leah had died with Diablo (or at least, everyone hoped she'd been killed when the possession took hold, because the alternative didn't bear thinking about), and Adria had betrayed them. Marta and her old soldier husband, the young man with a pretty wife, the soldiers that had been charged with being on watch that shift, even the cowardly former mayor - all dead.

And of the two men who had won the day in the end, only one was still standing on his own two feet when they got back to the keep.

As such, Li didn't really feel like they'd won much at all. Really, the demon hunter had been the one to win everything. He'd had the reflexes, the skills, the perserverance, and he'd been doing all of it while running pretty much entirely on fumes. Li had been trapped in one of the bone-cages, snatched up and tossed aside like a ragdoll, while Ander had dodged and rolled and vaulted, unloading countless bolts into the Prime Evil's hide.

To be honest, he'd been made to look like an idiot in the face of the hunter's skill, and he was really starting to doubt the whole Hero Of Prophecy thing. What kind of hero acted arrogant and bratty throughout the journey, only to flub the final battle? And then, the one who actually had saved the day was the one who unquestioningly worked himself half to death for the sake of others, to the point of collapsing and having to be carried back to the safety of the keep! In the back of his mind he was reminded of what that shade of Leah had said to them on their way to the spire: _Some savior you are, Nephalem._

Li was startled out of his self-pitying train of thought by being clapped on the shoulder enthusiastically. He turned his head to see who the culprit was and saw Lyndon grinning broadly at him. "Everything all right there, hero?" The thief placed an interesting emphasis on the last word, like he was confirming it to himself as well as to the mage. His tone betrayed his concern.

"Oh, well, yes. Yes, of course." The wizard cleared his throat and straightened his posture, managing a wry smirk in return. "Why, are you worrying about me?"

"Nonsense, I'm only worried for the gold you promised me. Can't have you getting cold feet about giving me a sodding great bag of money, can I?" Giving him another pat on the shoulder, Lyndon began to gently lead the shorter man to one of the dining tables that hadn't been turned into a makeshift medical bed. "Come on, then, saving the world is something worth celebrating. You just sit down and rest a moment, I'll go get everyone and find us some drinks, eh?"

Lyndon always knew what to say when he was presented with someone in a foul mood; the wizard found himself smiling in spite of his thoughts. He didn't drink often, but it was supposed to be a good way to forget yourself for a while, and that could be nice. "Just who do you intend to get?" he asked, mildly amused.

Satisfied that Li was settled and not about to go anywhere, Lyndon began to turn to leave. "Oh, whoever might be willing to get in on the fun, I suppose," he said in a slightly singsong-y voice, and headed off to fetch drinks and people to drink with.

\---

Eirena, Captain Haile, Haedrig and Covetous Shen ended up joining them for their celebration, and Li had to admit that the whole thing did lift his spirits a bit. Everyone else had decided to start a drinking contest after they'd all had a couple of rounds, but the wizard declined; he was already a bit tipsy after just three drinks, so it was probably best that he not get too engaged in their competition of seeing who could drink the _most_.

Lyndon was the first to drop out after four more drinks, but that was just so he could scoot over next to Li and bet with him on who might win the contest (Lyndon put his money on Haedrig, and Li put his on Eirena). The two of them then proceeded to just sit and watch for a couple of hours, pacing themselves and drinking a bit more sensibly while the rest of the group got absolutely plastered.

Eirena was the next to drop out, but it took her far longer than anyone except Li had anticipated, and she was still bursting into hiccuping giggles as she stumbled and staggered her way back to the reclaimed rooms that they'd rigged up to be liveable again. Captain Haile seemed to have just been trying to outlast her as a matter of manly pride, because he excused himself mere moments later, looking a little ill.

Li was about ready to give his money to the rogue and give up when it turned out that Haedrig was the next to leave, putting Shen in first place. The old man, meanwhile, didn't seem to notice that he'd won anything or even that there was any competition to begin with. He just kept going, completely oblivious. The two troublemakers looked at him, then at each other, and started snickering.

"Pff, hah, well! At least neither of us _lost_ any money," Lyndon noted, looping an arm around the wizard's shoulders to give him a slightly drunk pat on the back that almost missed.

"No, we didn't, you're right about that." Figuring the celebration was probably over, Li moved to swing his legs over the seat in a rather exaggerated way so he could stand, but the ground decided that this was a silly thing for him to attempt, and came up to attack his face.

Which made Lyndon break into a fit of giggling, of course. "Is the hero in need of any assistance, perhaps?" he asked in as innocent a tone he could manage while laughing.

Li rolled himself over with some effort, shooting a glare in Lyndon's general direction. "I'm perfectly fine," he insisted, making a grab for the chair to haul himself back up and not coming anywhere near it, which only got the rogue giggling again.

At some point the thief stopped giggling and stood up, himself, and since he was significantly more sure of where his feet were from having more practice at that sort of thing and a better tolerance in general, he was only a little wobbly when he bent down to take Li by his outstretched arm and heave him up to his feet. "Come on, you, I think it's time for bed."

He wasn't quite sure when the thought occurred to him - maybe just then, while he was drunk, or maybe it was something he'd secretly been thinking of for quite a long while - but when the wizard looked back over at the scoundrel right then as he was being helped up, he had the sudden urge to kiss him. There were plenty of reasons not to, but it was hard to think of them when his mind was all foggy.

Lyndon didn't know about those thoughts. He only seemed slightly confused that he was being stared at so intently. It did at least occur to him that something was off, though. "What? Is something on my fa-- _mmf!_ " It appeared that getting snogged was _not_ on the list of things he might have expected.

The mage was either too drunk or too inexperienced or both to do a very good job of it, but he made up for it somewhat with enthusiasm and a tight grip on his friend's collar to keep him in one spot. Lyndon had to do quite a bit of shoving to get the wizard to detatch himself, and Li staggered back a little, but at least he didn't fall.

"What was-- Why did you-- _Li_!" Lyndon sputtered. He didn't look all too sure about whether he should be angry or embarassed. "Are you _mad_?! Have you _completely_ taken leave of your senses?! What were you even _thinking_?!" The thief wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, glaring at the wizard.

"That I should be blunt." In Li's mind, his actions made perfect sense. Lyndon would probably just take it as some sort of joke otherwise, wouldn't he?

"That's-- Bloody leaping _hell_ , do you have any idea what you're doing at all?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

Exasperated, the thief facepalmed and sighed heavily. "Gods, you must be more of a lightweight than I'd thought."

Li pouted. "So, no?"

"Yes-- no-- I mean, maybe! But you're _drunk_ , I couldn't just--"

"And you aren't?"

"Less so than _you_ , apparently!"

"You still haven't told me why you wouldn't."

"Because--" The sentence floundered before he could continue it. "Because... Because I have my _reasons_ , you git!" Lyndon huffed. "A-and besides, who said you could just--" here, he gestured vaguely between the two of them, " _waltz_ up and _kiss_ me without warning like that?"

The wizard paused. "...You still haven't really _objected_ to it."

It simply wouldn't be tactful for Lyndon to say what he was thinking - something like _yes, well, I'm hoping I can stall long enough for you to pass out and forget this ever even happened_ , but Li's words did leave him at a loss besides that. "...You're really, actually serious about this, aren't you?"

"Of course I'm serious." Arms folded over his chest, the wizard seemed almost insulted by the implication that he wasn't. Miraculously, he was still on his feet, and he'd locked his knees to keep himself that way. He was also trying - and failing - to look taller. Probably in an attempt to prove his seriousness.

Lyndon sighed again. "Oh, _fine_ , then." He looked resigned as he stepped up to close the gap between them, bringing a hand 'round the younger man's waist. Li grinned triumphantly and took hold of the thief's coat again in turn, looking smug and not the least bit sober.

Still, that grin was infectious nonetheless; soon, Lyndon was doing it too. To hell with it. They were supposed to be celebrating.

"First things first, let's make you a bit less completely _terrible_ at kissing, hm?"

\---

Covetous Shen looked up from his drinking and blinked when he discovered that the area was empty except for him. "Goodness, now just _where_ did everybody go?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, next fic is gonna continue somewhat where this left off - morning after - and it'll include the Crusader a bit later on as a sort of new companion come to join the crew just prior to everyone shipping off to act 5 after being late to the acts-3-and-4 party. It'll be paced slower, it'll be more thoughtful, but still with funny moments, and it will be from Lyndon's perspective for the most part, rather than the wizard's. It'll show what happened to the demon hunter, as in I wrote the scene and am debating whether to put it as a flashback-y third chapter or a prologue first chapter, and it'll likely be spoilertastic as to the beginning of Act 5 and everyones' backstories. 
> 
> Thanks for reading so far, by the way, and being patient with me! <3 you all! 8D


	5. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two adorable goofballs enabling each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AUGH THIS WAS GOING TO BE LONGER BUT THE SECOND HALF GOT DELETED. I'm not rewriting it, there was too much of it for me to remember every detail. Here, have the first half.

 

_"Is it me, or is it hot in here?"_

_"We're at the base of a volcanic crater, it's going to be hot."_

_"Well it's usually just me."_

 

 

Once again, they'd won the day. Although this time, Li wasn't nearly as torn up about it. He didn't have reason to be, this time around, since he'd actually been the one to win it. Oh, sure, Tyrael had some stern words with him about how Diablo was free and all that, but he wasn't about to let _that_ get him down. Diablo was nothing. The whole _world_ was nothing. He'd beaten the aspect of Death itself!

Okay, fine, he'd had Lyndon's help. He supposed that counted.

The two of them were strolling the streets of a revitalized Caldeum together. When their little party had gone its separate ways, he'd opted to keep Lyndon with him for the completely unselfish and absolutely innocent reason of _mine, damn it_. The rogue had been in one hell of a state after Westmarch, but he'd cheered considerably after the world was no longer in peril. A couple of weeks of bounties and he was almost back to normal, and on the off-chance that Li caught him sulking, well, there were plenty of ways to keep his mind off of things.

"The Iron Wolves are reporting that there's a sodding great sand worm terrorizing people on their way to Alcarnus, aaannndd..." Lyndon said, going through the stack of posted bounties, "...Some bloke says he's found a Lacuni in his wine cellar. Pity, that. It's probably ruined all the good vintages by now."

" _One_ lacuni? Hardly worth the effort, even if there were a good bottle or two in it for us." Li took the papers from the thief and scanned them briefly. "What about this one, with the skeletons? That sounds promising."

Lyndon snorted and pointed to a bit of fine print at the bottom. "He's paying for it in _dried grapefruit_."

"Well, to him it's probably worth something. Even dried, imagine the difficulty of getting grapefruit all the way out here."

"What, in this city? We're surrounded by decadence at the moment, you know." To emphasize, the thief nicked a golden, jewel-encrusted egg from a merchant's stall as they passed. Li clicked his tongue, snatched it back from him and put it back on the shelf before anyone could notice it was gone.

"Here in the bazaar, yes, but you try living here for a few years and see how _decadent_ it is to you after that." Before the other man could interrupt, Li added, "And I _don't_ mean living here as in what we do when using our reputation as heroes to get the best accomodations available."

"Speaking of, will we need to do that _thing_ again where I talk you up and you act important? I rather enjoyed that back in Lut Gholein." People had expressed disbelief that the hero of Sanctuary was, well, less than a towering figure, and Lyndon had proceeded to chew them out while Li had puffed his chest out and glared at them disapprovingly. Their absolute confidence - and the fact that neither of them so much as batted an eye throughout the whole act - had gotten them free lodgings and food for a week.

"I doubt it, the people know us here. We would have to resort to that if we were to visit Kurast or Skovos or anywhere _else_ we haven't been, however."

"Do you think that word of our wondrous exploits would have even _gotten_ to Skovos?"

"It's about as likely as word of it getting to Xiansai or Philios. Do you still want to go, by the way?"

"Hm? Go where?"

"To Philios."

"Of co-- wait a moment. That's a loaded question, isn't it?"

Li grinned, not looking the least bit innocent. "Me? I would _never_ do such a thing as ask you a loaded question."

"Yes you would. And then you'd use it as blackmail and _pout_ at me over it." Folding his arms, Lyndon gave the wizard a stern look that didn't have any bite to it at all.

Almost as if on cue, Li broke out his best puppy-eyed pout at being accused of pouting. It didn't work; Lyndon just raised an eyebrow at him. The pout lasted for a few more seconds, before Li ended up breaking into a grin, and Lyndon smirked, and before long both of them were snickering at nothing at all in the middle of the street, shaking their heads at their own silliness.

The rest of the street's occupants thought them to be mad, naturally.

It was Lyndon who was able to restrain himself first, trailing off into a few chuckles. "Ahaha, right. So!" He clapped his hands together for emphasis, then held his arm out toward the wizard. "Dinner?"

Li hooked his arm around the thief's own with a nod, smiling back. "Why not?"

 

- _fin_ -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't going to add onto this fic, but this little bit needed to be written. These two deserve a gorram happy ending after what I'm gonna put 'em through in the other fic. Or at least, a semi-happy one. They're still broken, and they're still stubborn about admitting anything, and they're still scarred by past experiences, but y'know what, that's okay. They can be sleeping together, and not admitting to one another that they really truly care about each other, while still being best friends. 
> 
> Adorable goofballs enabling each other, saving the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Con-crit is MORE than welcome. Don't bother to be gentle if you see something wrong.


End file.
